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Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life (Film)

by Julian Shaw | August 09, 2010 15:10 | Edited August 09, 2010 15:42

Intriguing and affecting gem which offers real insight into modern family life.

The vicissitudes of family life can make for the richest kind of cinema: think the scalding drama Ordinary People, the tangled intersections of Magnolia, or even the hipper-than-thou jive of The Royal Tenenbaums. Even simple characters can become totally absorbing in a family-driven storyline, but when you make the family a bunch of outspoken Frenchies, and depict their lives through the prism of five pivotal days spread over twelve years, then you really have the recipe for a winner.

 

Such is the case in this likeable Gallic film, which makes for a promising debut from director Remi Bezancon. This family revolves around its patriarch, Robert Duval (Jacques Gamblin), who is nothing like his American actor namesake. Robert is a cabbie, a happily married man (Zabou Breitman plays his wife) and father of three - his daughter, Fleur (Deborah Francois), is a grunge-rat; his youngest son, Raphael (Marc-Andre Grondin), is a wide-eyed naïf; and his eldest son, Albert (Pio Marmai), is an aspiring professional. A handful of carefully chosen moments - which include small and large violations of trust, and even a tragic interlude - accumulate to create a compelling portrait of this family as Father Time jerks the strings in unpredictable ways.

 

By focussing on such a microcosm, the film offers modest but intriguing insights into the modern French family. It's the small, symphonic touches that Bezancon excels at - he is a dab hand at picking music, and he opens his picture with half a reel of grainy Super 8 footage. Far from nervy stylistic tics, it all feels just right - far from Wes Anderson's brand of affectation in fact, and more rooted in the real world that we know. Ultimately it is the array of characters canvassed here that will ensure that this movie appeals to almost every age group. As the saying goes, for first timer Bezancon, success is all relative.